Surely, during the pandemic period, you were required to work virtually with your team. In other cases you haven’t met your team yet and you would like to join them, build trust and strengthen the working spirit.
If you are looking for ideas on how to do it, don’t worry, we will help you with these team-building activities and connect your team together.
Summary
- It’s essential to connect with your team on a daily basis, as it fosters communication, trust, friendship, and a positive work environment for everyone.
- The activities you do with your virtual team should be fun and involve your entire team to participate. Including your colleagues is easier than you think.
- Set aside a specific time and space for the activity in advance, remember that the idea is not to interfere with the work of the day, but to relax your team from their work for a while.
The best games to play with virtual teams: The definitive list
With social distancing, many of our interactions, both personal and professional, have been forced to change. While remote work is effective and has brought us closer to our families, pets and a slightly quieter life, it also has its own challenges (1).
Read more about Remote Work Benefits
17. Guess the movie
A very entertaining activity is to guess the movie, where you can use videos that provide you with the content and you just project it for the viewers to guess what it is about.
Mostly, you play musical fragments of the movie and characterize them with emojis or a blurry image of the character.
16. Rummikub
This is one of the many board games nowadays converted to digital, it is perfect to make your opponents think, it brings about that spirit of competition, but at the same time, it also depends on luck.
The game consists of tiles that have numbers from 1 to 13. The objective is to be the first player to place all the tiles off the board, it contains jokers that can help you win faster, put it to the test.
15. Bingo
Currently, there are several platforms that allow you to organize an online Bingo with your virtual team, the only detail is that the activity is usually extensive, but if you have good time it can be a great idea.
You can use a free platform that provides you with cards and a random number generator suitable for the game. This will make it more organized. We recommend offering a small prize to further motivate participation.
14. The Hangman
A simple game that will make your team have a good time. The idea is that someone projects the screen showing, either a platform that facilitates the game or directly from a painting or drawing tool that they have on their computers.
People should guess a word by saying random letters and thus discover the secret message. If you say a letter that is not in the sentence, a character will be drawn until, as the name of the game indicates, he is hanged. You win if you guess the sentence or word before the drawing is finished.
13. Memory games
Memory games are so broad that we can apply the technique to many activities. On this occasion we can suggest a visual memory game, where you share your screen and ask everyone to look at the images and then ask them to answer a series of questions such as:
- What color was the third car?
- How many buildings were there?
- Where was the blond boy?
You can increase the difficulty of the questions to see who is the most attentive of the team and reward them with something you have in mind.
12. Chained words
Call your team together and arrange a small consecutive game, it encourages the participation of the whole group and helps to improve concentration.
The idea is to use a word, such as bear, and have the next person follow the chain repeating the word and indicating the next word with the letter that ended the previous one, such as: Bear, bear – pot. We recommend doing a maximum of 3 or 4 rounds so as not to tire the team.
11. The Chubby
A fun game that you can play with your virtual teammates is “The chubby”, which consists of all members going to their closet and putting on as many clothes as possible on their bodies within 60 seconds.
The one who manages to have more garments like:
- Shirts
- Coats
- Blouses
- Scarves
- Pants
- Socks
- Coats
…among other items, will be the winner. Internally, you can agree on some kind of prize that will motivate everyone to participate. It will be the highlight of the group integration dynamics – give it a try with your team!
10. Pinturillo
This is a great option to bring out our inner artist, and it doesn’t matter if you don’t have drawing skills. It will be fun to see how everyone tries to express themselves through drawings. The objective is to guess the words presented through drawings to accumulate points, the more points you have the more chances you have to win.
Drawing allows you to know everything you don’t know about yourself, besides expressing what you feel and clearing all the chaos that may be happening in a busy day (4).
09. Rock, Paper, Scissors
Sounds fun, bringing back a childhood game in an office environment. You can resort to games as ambiguous as this one and have fun like when you were a kid. You can make use of a virtual platform that offers the digital game. Being a game usually for 2 players, it can be used in a feedback or coaching session where you and your partner can relax.
The other alternative is that you can do it with the webcam, you ask everyone to draw rock, paper, or scissors on the count of 3 and to make it fun you can propose challenges. In this option, you can include more than one member to make it even more fun.
08. Stopots – Stop!
A famous game that like the previous one joined the virtual world is Stop, Basta, Tutti trutti, Pencil still or Mercadito, which are the names that have been given over the years. In this case, there are different web pages that offer you the whole experience of the game in a simplified way.
All you have to do is to agree on a letter of the alphabet and start thinking of words that start with the chosen letter, such as:
| Words to complete: Letter L | Example |
|---|---|
| First name | Lorena |
| Surname | López |
| City | Cartago |
Fruit | Lemon |
| Colour | Lilac |
| Animal | Lion |
| Object | Lamp |
07. Gartic Phone
An amazing game full of emotion and guaranteed laughs, it keeps the drawing theme, but with some tools and a presentation mode that will help you distract yourself from a difficult day.
According to a study conducted by the José Martà elementary school in the state of Mexico, it assures that drawing relaxes the little ones as much as the older ones (2). This means that after a half day, it can be relaxing to draw a little and share with your classmates.
06. Trivia
Trivia games will undoubtedly bring out your own skills or those of your colleagues, since many people enjoy challenging general culture questions to change the focus of attention and clear the mind.
There are many platforms with random questions, but you also have the option of creating your own virtual trivia game or recommending your colleagues to prepare 5 general culture questions each and challenge each other to answer them in a small meeting. A recommended site for trivia could be Kahoot! which has an infinite number of questions for all tastes.
See the other best Gamification Software
05. Personal presentation games
Personal quizzes give you the opportunity to get to know aspects of your co-workers lives that in one way or another will make you feel that you are already a little closer to them.
It is important to get to know who we work with. Talking and building a relationship with those around us can help to have an impact on other people’s lives, as well as generate new knowledge and even friendships (3).
04. Uno
The famous card game, which was also adapted to the virtual world, offers the same game theme where you can have a good time with your friends and colleagues.
Just like the traditional game, a set of 4 colors with numbers and figures is distributed among all the players and the one who runs out of cards is the winner.
It follows the same rules as the conventional UNO.
03. Mimic
Mime has been a very popular training activity for the last few years, it’s fun to see how people try to communicate. It’s super simple to play, you can opt for virtual tools and apps, but if you like you can do it yourself with your team which will make it a bit more dynamic and ensure that everyone participates.
Your team members will be required to be as creative as possible. The idea is that you as the host of the activity give each one a word and which they mime so that the others can guess, without words or mumbling. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?
02. Show and tell!
This activity will help you get to know your team better. Try asking each of them during the videoconference to quickly choose an object they hold dear and tell why they chose it or why it’s so important to them.
It doesn’t usually take long, but it’s a great opportunity to bond, learn about other perspectives and perhaps make a new friend. Had it not been for socialization we would not have been able to evolve into the beings we are.
Guillermo Bisbal – Anthropologist: “Companionship, communication, and sharing are important for human beings, not only to maintain emotional health, which is fundamental, but also to keep the brain as active as possible.”
01. Song Pop
Honestly, who doesn’t like music and sharing the songs we love the most? That’s what Song pop is for, a free online game where you can share your favorite songs with everyone.
Its dynamics are simple, the host who creates the room will be responsible for assigning a musical genre. Following this selection, everyone will have to guess the name of the song or artist.
You will have a wonderful time trying to guess songs, the idea is to rotate the genres or put the random option so that there are more chances for everyone’s favorite songs to appear.
Conclusion
Digital activities and games should not be something complicated to unite a team. Work becomes more enjoyable when trust, companionship, and moments where for a few minutes you don’t think about work are strengthened.
We invite you to change your work meetings and do something different from time to time. If you are not used to apply it daily, it is best to add small activities progressively and thus promote a comfortable atmosphere among workers.
References
1. Oszlak O. Remote work: making a virtue out of necessity. CUINAP Argentina [Internet]. 2020 [accessed November 2, 2022];1(30).
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2. Acervo Digital Educativo. Emotion management and self-regulation [Internet]. Mexico City: Government of the State of Mexico; 2021 [accessed November 7, 2022]. 47 p.
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3. Davis P. The importance of meeting people you don’t yet know. Psychology Today [Internet]. [accessed November 7, 2022].
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4. Lemos R. The Mind is Wonderful [Internet]. If chaos resides in your mind, start drawing; April 25, 2018 [accessed November 10, 2022].
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